Film Program Originally Set for Smithsonian Screening Now Will Be Seen Only in Buffalo

"Portraiture in Queer Experimental Cinema" will be curated by noted critic Ed Halter

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- On Feb. 28, the University at Buffalo will
present "Portraiture in Queer Experimental Cinema," a program of
short films originally developed as part of the scholarly symposium
around the groundbreaking Smithsonian Institution exhibition
"Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture."

Jonathan Katz, PhD, associate professor, UB Department of Visual
Studies and curator of the Smithsonian exhibition, says the film
program, curated by Ed Halter, one of the foremost authorities on
queer experimental film, will be seen only in Buffalo and will
offer an opportunity to see films so rare that some exist only in a
single copy.

The 10-film, 71-minute program will be screened at 7:30 p.m. in
the Screening Room in the Center for the Arts, UB North Campus. It
will be open to the public and free of charge.

"We will present a program of short films and videos by queer
artists spanning half a century that let us consider how various
aspects of portraiture play out within different approaches to
experimental cinema," Katz says. "It will include work by Kenneth
Anger, Andy Warhol, Gregory Markopoulos, Su Friedrich, Barbara
Hammer, Sadie Benning and others."

The program is sponsored by the Smithsonian National Portrait
Gallery and co-sponsored by the UB Department of Visual Studies,
the UB Gender Institute, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, the UB
Art Gallery, the UB Department of Media Studies and the
Albright-Knox Art Gallery.

Halter is a 2009 recipient of the Creative Capital/Warhol
Foundation Arts Writers Grant, and from 1995 to 2005, he programmed
and oversaw the New York Underground Film Festival.

He has organized screenings and exhibitions at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music, Cinematexas, PS1, Artists Space, Eyebeam, the
Flaherty Film Seminar, Participant Inc., and the Museum of Modern
Art. He is a visiting assistant professor in the Bard College
Department of Film and Electronic Arts.

Halter has lectured at Harvard University, New York University,
Yale University and other schools; at Art in General, Aurora
Picture Show, the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology; the
Images Festival, the Impakt Festival and Pacific Film Archive. He
is the author of "From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games" (2006)
and a founder and director of Light Industry, a venue for film and
electronic art in Brooklyn, N.Y.